RUBBER PROCESSING

Since 1924, Mobile Rosin Oil has produced rubber-processing aids, which have been used extensively and in large volumes by tire manufacturers. These processing aids consist of proprietary blends of rosin and tall oil along with pine tars. Other specialty products many of which are based on rosins and tall oils are also consumed by manufacturers of belting, mechanical rubber goods, rubber mats, tubing, and other unique applications.

Why Rosin Makes Sense…
It has been long recognized that rosin based products are excellent components in rubber processing. When used as tackifiers, significant cost savings are realized compared to petroleum products and Phenolic resins. It has been demonstrated in the laboratory as well as production, that combinations of rosins and rosin oil blends along with Phenolic resins provide cost effective tackifying systems in rubber formulations while maintaining superior physical characteristics of the finished rubber. Rosin based blends offer more stable pricing and availability than petroleum-based materials and Phenolic resins.

The use of rosin then and now
In years past, rosin-based tackifiers were traditionally controlled to sets of physical specifications. These tackifiers played an effective role in controlling costs while performing satisfactorily.

As quality considerations became more demanding, it was concluded that pine tars and rosin blends lacked the identifiability, uniformity, and predictability consumers wanted. Tack variation also became a focal point of concern.

Pine tars, rosins and rosin oils, when used in large volumes years ago, were all thought to produce tack variation in production. For this reason a trend developed towards using more petroleum-based products and Phenolic resins. Substantial time, effort and money was spent on evaluation of the pine family of intermediate raw materials to investigate how they could be improved upon while still offering a lower cost alternative to Phenolic resin tackifiers.

The research and development program revealed that strictly controlling the CHEMICAL content, as well as the PHYSICAL specification brought a dramatic change in the performance of the materials being used, along with the most important thing, namely, the uniformity and predictability of rosin-based blends used as tackifiers. In some cases, these proprietary blends even replaced Phenolic resins totally. The absolute control of rosin acids and fatty acids with rigid plus or minus deviations gave excellent performance and cost benefits.

In order to identify the specific chemicals, which made up these highly complex blends, the use of modern, sophisticated equipment became commonplace. Such procedures as gas chromatography, gel permeation chromatography, high-pressure liquid chromatography, differential thermal analysis and atomic absorption have been widely used. They have enabled Mobile Rosin Oil to specifically identify chemical components and meticulously control all production materials to a very strict chemical makeup with unparalleled quality. In turn, manufacturers who utilize materials produced in such a manner can count on consistent performance utilizing the highest quality products at the lowest possible cost.

During the 1990s, the rosin blend family of tackifiers made a dramatic comeback in rubber formulations and exhibited the uniformity and predictability at the moderate cost levels needed to offset much higher cost tackifiers. In fact, available data shows that combinations of rosin and tall oil blends with a Phenolic gives superior performance than Phenolic alone.

It is important to understand that our family of rubber processing aids represent our primary product line. Competitive materials offered, comprise secondary, even tertiary by-products which “Just happen” to conform to given sets of specifications.

Although the rubber reclaimation market technology in the United States has undergone significant change, many areas of the world still utilize older, more economical methods of recovery. Rubber softeners and peptizing agents are routinely produced by Mobile Rosin Oil and exported to users around the world for use in reclaiming rubber.

Base Product Line
Even though we classify ourselves as a custom manufacturer, we do inventory a variety of base products, which serve the rubber industry. Our base products serving the rubber industry are:

If our base products do not fit your needs, let us work with you to develop a product that will best work for you.Â For further information or direct technical assistance regarding our products, please contact Jalandar Y. Jadhav, Ph.D. at jyj@mobros.com